


By Any Other Name

by dgalerab



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Because of Stone Shenanigans, Bucky is a mess, Except Everyone Is Alive, Getting Together, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Psychological Trauma, Steve is Arguably More of One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 20:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15151370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dgalerab/pseuds/dgalerab
Summary: (INFINITY WAR SPOILERS)Somehow, getting Bucky back from the Soulworld doesn't fix the wound seeing him die (again) left behind, and the fact that Bucky's last word was his name doesn't help.





	By Any Other Name

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to fxvixen, rustingroses and quinnlocke for betaing/titling this thing!
> 
> Anyway I saw Infinity War before ANYONE ELSE and Bucky vanishing right after saying "Steve" fucked me up more than possibly any other scene in any movie ever and I couldn't tell anyone about it so basically @ Marvel FIGHT ME.
> 
> But until then, here's a fic.

_“Steve?”_

The second - third, fourth, if you count it differently - time Steve loses Bucky, he doesn’t grieve. It takes so long before can bring himself to understand what happened, to parse the fact that his best friend turned to dust before his eyes. It takes him forever just to feel the loss and realize that if he goes down to the little hut Bucky’s been staying in, Bucky won’t be there. He won’t be hovering around, one eye on his goats but his full attention on the latest gadget Shuri gifted him. He won’t be anywhere.

 It takes so long that by the time he can get it, everyone’s already looking to him to lead. Thor got the soul stone, Bruce tells him. Rocket got in touch with some lady; she’s with Tony. They’ve got a plan.

*

_“Steve?”_

A whole world within a stone is a reality Steve wasn’t prepared for, but it doesn’t matter, because Bucky is there. He’s there, and it doesn’t feel real, a strange cycle of disbelief. Bucky can’t be here, because Bucky can’t have died, and if he didn’t die he can’t be here and if he is here he’s not alive.

*

_“Steve?_ ”

Somehow they end up in New York. Bucky gets his own bedroom, and something from Shuri to help him sleep. Steve doesn’t sleep. Steve just wanders through nightmares where Bucky falls or Bucky disappears, constantly blinking in and out of Steve’s life.

*

_“Steve?”_

He wakes with Bucky gone again, except he’s not gone, the nightmare just lingers. Steve gets out of bed, sneaks across the hall, and stops in the doorway, finally breathing easy when he sees Bucky wrapped in blankets, fast asleep. Steve finally feels like he can breathe. Like life makes sense again. Like _Steve’s_ there again.

*

“ _Steve?_ ”

Steve’s stomach clenches and this time he wants to leap forward and catch Bucky before he vanishes, like he could, like he can anchor Bucky just by holding onto him.

That used to be true. If he could have caught Bucky before he fell, that would have saved him. But ash? What can Steve do against someone turning to ash? Not even Steve can hold him tight enough for that, but he can’t bear to see Bucky vanish again, not again…

“Just get in the bed, you creep,” Bucky mumbles, stirring only after Steve’s spent half the night staring at him. His sleeping pills work well, it seems. He’s not vanishing again. He’s just peering at Steve through the dark, still half asleep.

It takes Steve a moment, to understand. To see Bucky, whole and alive and well. Another moment to force his gears into grinding, to lurch into the bed.

It’s a big bed, big enough for the two of them, and Steve settles in behind Bucky. From his breath, he’s sleeping again. Steve wonders if he has nightmares too. Wonders if it hurt, to fade away. His heart beats a mile a minute, but he doesn’t want to wake Bucky. He reaches his hand forward, slowly but surely, stroking his finger along Bucky’s hair, just to feel something.

He’s still here. He’s okay.

*

_“Steve?_ ”

It knocks the breath out of Steve every time. He’s not ready, not ready at all to lose Bucky again, to turn and see him vanish.

But Bucky doesn’t vanish this time. His hand is firm and solid on Steve’s shoulder, though he’s still rubbing sleep from his eyes. “You gonna freak every time I say your name from now on?” Bucky says. “Cause it's gonna get weird after a while.”

“Shoulda chosen your last words more wisely, then,” Steve tries to joke, but it falls flat.

“Steve,” Bucky says. He means it gently, probably, but it sounds feeble, somehow, and that makes it hard not to think about how he'd vanished, _collapsed_ into _nothing._ “Hey. Talk to me, pal.”

“Don't worry about it,” Steve says, palms sweaty. “You're back. I'll get over it.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, and it doesn't sound like _that_ this time. “You walked into enemy territory, hunted me down in some random apartment in Romania, fought the whole world, caught a helicopter, and opened a portal into another dimension to make sure I was okay, and I _am_.” He holds Steve's shoulders firmly. “I think I can handle one conversation about you, now.”

Steve can't help but smile a little. “Just the one?”

Bucky smiles back. “Well yeah,” he jokes. “Let's not get carried away.”

Steve snorts. “It's just nightmares, Buck,” he murmurs. “Sorry I woke you up.”

“You can just sleep in my bed, if you want,” Bucky says. “I know we're not kids and you don't have asthma anymore, but I'm used to it.”

Steve nods. He might take Bucky up on that.

“And I'm calling you Stevie until you stop looking like that when I say your name,” Bucky says. “You're driving me crazy.”

Steve sighs. “Short trip,” he mutters, and Bucky punches his shoulder.

*

_“Stevie?”_

_Oh god no,_ Steve thinks. _No, not again, I can't lose you again._

He whirls around, grabbing Bucky as fast as he can, his mind bracing itself for Bucky to slip between his fingers, nothing but dust.

He had to swallow down that fear to get a good look at Bucky. “Shit,” he breathes.

Bucky is sweaty and hazy eyed, unsteady on his feet and coughing slightly. “I don't feel so good, Stevie,” he mumbles.

“Shit,” Steve says, sweeping Bucky into his arms and carrying him back to bed. “I'll call Nat, she'll get a doctor.”

Bucky just wheezes at him.

*

_“Stevie?”_

Steve takes a breath, wiping the sweat off his hands before he puts them on Bucky's shoulder. “Right here, Buck,” he promises.

Bucky looks at him blearily. “Ruined another name,” he says. “Gonna have to get creative.”

“Don't worry about that, idiot,” Steve says, smiling despite his pounding heart. “Just get better.”

“Did you guys have antibiotics back in the old days?” Nat asks. She’s supposedly helping, but mostly she's just been eating all their food.

“Penicillin was just starting to make the rounds when I went under,” Steve says. “I didn’t exactly have time to get used to it, and I figure it's gotten better since then.”

Still, he can't shake the fear that had come with the words “bacterial pneumonia” amid Bucky's wet coughs and fever. Steve smoothes the cold pack over his forehead - another new invention - as an excuse to comfort himself.

“Now you know what it's like to be me,” Bucky croaks.

“Did you get lot of pneumonia, Rogers?” Nat asks. She loves hearing about Steve as a kid way too much.

“No, thank God,” Bucky says, closing his eyes.

“Asthma,” Steve says. “And every flu that came my way.”

“Sickly little runt,” Bucky mumbles. He'd spent so many long nights trying to clear Steve's airways over a lot of boiling water.

God, if something were to happen to him…

“Well, you'll have your revenge,” Steve says. “Shuri says this might happen often.”

“Who'da thought being frozen half the time would fuck a guy up,” Bucky says, then starts wheezing.

Of course, that's not all. It's the immunosuppressants, the reckless antibiotics. Bucky's body shows all the signs of being used as a tool for decades. Wakandan medicine has helped, but Shuri gave him a list of complications to be aware of when they'd decided to spend time in New York.

“Revenge is sweet,” Bucky says dryly, gasping for breath as his body shakes around his coughing.

“Just hang in there, Buck,” Steve whispers.

*

_“Rogers!”_

Steve nearly drops the pen in his hand. There's something so _off_ about Bucky's tone, Steve is dizzy and nauseated immediately. “What?” he manages.

“There's some queer kid on TV!” Bucky says, not even looking at him. “And they like him!”

“You've gotta be shitting me,” Steve blurts. “ _That's_ your problem?”

Bucky frowns. “It's just a big change. From when we were kids.”

“Yeah, well it's one I happen to like,” Steve snaps. “I thought something was wrong and you just…” He gestures helplessly.

“It's just… really different,” Bucky says softly. “New.”

“It shouldn't be,” Steve says. “We knew gay people back then, too. Avery Johnson, down the street? Who got the crap beat out of him?”

“ _You_ got the crap beat out of you, ‘til I got there,” Bucky corrects.

He hadn't been too keen on telling people the reason for that fight either. It leaves a sour taste in Steve's mouth, though he can't blame Bucky. Everyone had been that way back then. But Steve doesn't like bullies, and now that the world's gotten better, he wants better too.

“I didn't say it was wrong,” Bucky says. “Just wasn't expecting it. Sometimes I forget how old were are.”

Steve sighs. “I'm sorry I snapped. You scared me.”

“Don't tell me I can't use Rogers anymore either,” Bucky says, watching Steve too close for comfort.

“There's nothing wrong with my name,” Steve says. “Use whatever you want.”

“Punk, then,” Bucky says cheerily.

*

_“Hey, punk.”_

The words come after a sharp jab in the side to wake him up, and Steve starts up once he hears them, staring at Bucky. It's that weird tone again. Like he's _scared._ “What's wrong?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Bucky says weakly. “Just gotta tell you something.”

Steve looks at the clock. “At four in the morning?”

“Don't wanna chicken out,” Bucky laughs, but his face looks queasy in the dark.

Steve sits up. “What?”

“I'm… I don't know… queer, gay, whatever they call it these days,” Bucky says.

Steve stares at him. “Since _when?”_

“Since… I don't know, 1927 when I realized?”

“You've known since we were _ten?”_

Bucky pulls back. “I thought you didn’t want to make a big deal out of this,”  he says, breathing carefully, trying to keep calm.

“You could have told me,” Steve whispers.

Bucky shakes his head. “No, I couldn’t.”

“You know I would have been okay with it!”

“I couldn’t tell anyone!” Bucky cries. “I had mouths to feed! I had you, and Becky, and my mom… I couldn’t tell anyone, because it couldn’t be true. I had to suck it up, find a girl anyway. Get married. Have a kid.”

“What about love?” Steve says. After all the things he’s done for Bucky, to find out that Bucky never once planned to be happy in the first place…

Bucky sighs. “Like I said,” he says. “I had you.”

Anything Steve might have said vanishes. He struggles to find his own tongue. “Damn it,” he says. His voice and heart break in unison. “That’s all the more reason you should have _told me_.”

“And what?” Bucky says, softly. “You loved Peggy, I saw it.”

“I would have never even thought of it if I already had someone,” Steve protests.

“I know,” Bucky says. “You really wanna tell me you’d have traded what you had with her to hide around with me? Captain America can’t be carrying around a watch with his boy’s picture.”

Steve cringes. “It’s not that simple,” he says. He _did_ love Peggy. Yes, he can see himself with Bucky just the same, but having had what he did with Peggy… it’s impossible to say if he’d trade it.

“I know,” Bucky murmurs, and it seems like he does.

They stare at each other, heads so close on their respective pillows.

“I’m here now,” Steve says finally.

“I’m telling you, aren’t I?” Bucky says, smiling.

Steve nods.

“Anyway, that’s all,” Bucky mutters, turning his back to Steve. “G’night.”

Steve doesn’t sleep.

*

_“Hey, Cap_.”

Steve sighs, finishing his tooth brushing as Bucky shuts off the hair drier. He’s blatantly addicted to technology, won’t do anything he can find a machine to do. Then again, Bucky has always liked that sort of thing.

“You can use my name, you know,” Steve says, before rinsing.

“I told you, I won’t until you deal with your shit,” Bucky says. His hair is soft and fluffy right after he’s dried it. He looks ridiculous.

Steve sighs, turning around to look at Bucky. “I lost you. Again.”

Bucky leans against the wall. “I was barely gone anyway.”

“You said my name, and then you were gone,” Steve says. He doesn’t know if Bucky’s admission means he can touch more freely. Hugging and shoulder grabbing has always been normal between them, but Steve wants to grab Bucky and hold him so tight he couldn’t possibly turn to dust if he tried.

“I’m not going to disappear again,” Bucky says.

“Christ,” Steve mutters, finally grabbing onto his shoulders. He doesn’t dare push into Bucky’s space too much. Not after all he’s been through. But if anyone could remove him, it’d be Bucky. “ _Christ_. You were just _gone_.”

“I know,” Bucky says softly. They’re so close that Steve feels his breath on his cheek.

“I didn’t even notice,” Steve says. “I didn’t notice why you were calling for me until you fell and I didn’t even get what happened until I saw Vision.”

“I didn’t get it even after I was in the Soulworld,” Bucky admits. “I didn’t understand where _you’d_ gone.”

“Thanos wanted to kill half the universe. And that included you,” Steve says. “You were dead. As far as I knew, as far as anyone knew… You were _dead_.”

“I’m not,” Bucky says. “I’m not dead, I’m here.”

Steve’s lip quivers, and Bucky draws in a sharp breath like he feels the vibrations from it on his own.

They’re both frozen, each waiting on the other to move. Steve knows this, but he can’t make himself be the one to break the standstill.

“Steve,” Bucky says, voice shaking.

Steve can’t say no to that tone. He takes Bucky’s face into his hands and kisses him, softly but with a burning desperation that Bucky meets with a moan. They stumble, trying to be gentle and hungry at once, but it’s no use. Neither of them manages to escape the other’s pull for several hours.

*

“Steve,” Bucky mumbles.

Steve’s getting better at not clenching up when Bucky slips back into that tone. Not because there’s nothing to worry about, because he has _plenty_ to worry about. Bucky has it all: migraines, respiratory problems, a weak stomach, flashbacks, cramps in his back, decades of terrifying internalized homophobia and a determination to take revenge on Steve for worrying the shit out of _him_ in the previous century.

Still, it’s a lot easier to deal with that if Steve can hold him. Even now, he suspects Bucky’s whining more than he is actually hurt, because he’s still lying in his favorite spot (on top of Steve) and reaching languidly for his glass of water on the table.

“You ass,” Steve scolds. “Scaring your guy just ‘cause you’re thirsty.”

“I didn’t scare you,” Bucky whines. “I’m sleepy and it’s far away. This is just my _voice_.”

Steve hands him the glass. “Sure, Buck.”

“You’re too easy to tease,” Bucky says, once he’s got what he’s wanted.

“I oughta put you over my knee,” Steve teases.

He can’t quite see Bucky’s face where it’s buried in his chest, but he sees the back of Bucky’s neck go red.

Steve can’t help it. He starts laughing.

“Shut up!” Bucky whines. “It’s not funny!”

That only makes Steve laugh harder. Bucky shakes with the effort it takes not to join in.

“Plenty of people like it!” Bucky says.

“Oh, trust me, I know,” Steve says. He spends time on Captain America forums. He knows exactly what kind of things people like.

Bucky huffs at him, finally lifting his head to glare, and when that doesn’t work, pout. Frankly, Steve couldn’t worry right this moment even if Bucky managed crocodile tears, because he hasn’t felt this close to Bucky since they were ten. Bucky groans, giving up and resigning himself to be laughed at with one last, exasperated, “ _Steve_!”

**Author's Note:**

> I bet this is what happens in Avengers 4 in the good timeline. Greedy jerks, taking all the wholesome content from the darkest timeline...


End file.
